DIY PR for Consultants

Hiring a PR agency is probably beyond the means of many consultants, but that doesn't mean you can't get yourself into the press. The key is to come up with a new and interesting angle and target specialist magazines or websites that cover your area of expertise.

Writing a press release is the easy part, the hard part is coming up with a story or article that will appeal to the editors of your chosen magazine or website. It can be really hard to come up with a new angle by yourself, so try getting together with other people in your local area or specialism and brainstorm ideas for all of you.

If your target is the local press then you'll almost certainly need a local connection of some kind - charity stories, new offices and so on - and you'll probably need at least an idea for a picture to go with it.

Specialist trade press are more likely to entertain a technical or 'thought-leaderhsip' articles, make sure you read through a few back-issues to see what's come up and whether you can find a new approach.

So, why not try a bit of DIY PR and let us know how it goes! For more tips and information on writing a press release click here

What makes you trust someone?

The issue of trust comes up regularly when discussing the use of consultants and advisors - we all want to become 'trusted advisors' to our clients - but clients often find it hard to know which advisors to trust.

I've just had eye surgery and while unable to do anything else have been pondering what it was that made me choose and ultimately trust this particular surgeon with one of the most vulnerable and critical bits of me.

To kick off, I went to her initially because the optician I've been going to for many years recommended her - in his words, 'if I needed surgery she's the one I'd choose'. Qualifications and experience were a given since this is someone who works in both NHS and private practice and I'm fairly confident that you don't get the 'consultant' tag in that environment without having done the necessary training and testing.

So that's the starting point - but I could easily have backed out or changed my mind after meeting - so what else did the consultant do that confirmed my choice? She didn't ooze charm, in fact like most surgeons I've come across she was brisk, efficient and possibly a tiny bit 'gung-ho' - utterly confident she could 'fix' my problem - but I left entirely confident that I was doing the right thing, with the right person.

I think there were two clinchers for me - she took the time to explain what the options were, had read her 'brief' (my referral letter) and treated me like an individual rather than assuming that the standard cure would be right for me. The final element was her sheer enthusiasm for her subject - it may sound weird, but having someone peer into your eye and exclaim 'what a lovely myopic disk' is incredibly reassuring!

I'd be interested to know if anyone else can share similar thoughts on why they've trusted someone?

Step by Step Guide to Tendering

One of the questions we get asked most often at Skillfair is, ‘Can a small company win a tender and how do I do it?’ The short answer to the question is ‘Yes’, but the ‘How-To’ is a bit longer. This series of articles is intended to take you through the key issues step by step so you can decide if engaging with the tendering process is worth the effort for your business and if you go ahead with it to help you do it as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Some of our members are relatively large companies who've won large projects through tendering, worth many hunders of thousands of pounds - but we also have one man bands who've won projects, got themselves onto preferred suppliers lists or teamed up with other consultants to win larger projects. The feedback we get is that it can be done, but you need to choose your tender carefully and be prepared to put the effort in over a period of time to be successful.

Each of these Q&A articles can be read standalone, or you can work your way through one at a time. Click here to read the Q&s

When you’ve read everything, you may feel that you want to give tendering a try but still need more help. There are plenty of consultants and advisors on Skillfair who have a background in procurement and tendering and who specialise in helping companies get to grips with the process, to get in touch with one to help you the easiest approach is to post a project on Skillfair explaining the kind of help you’re looking for.

success story - with a warning!

A few weeks ago a client who had posted an interesting short IT project called us to say that they'd had no response from any of the consultants who'd initially contacted them. We (well Angela actually) immediately hit the phones to find out where everyone had disappeared to and despite the absence of answer phones and some dodgy email addresses managed to get through to people.

It was very satisfying to hear today from Nick de Voil that he's signed the contract for the engagement for an 'IT systems audit' - in Nick's words;

"You'll remember a couple of weeks ago you called to let me know the
company who posted this project were having trouble getting hold of me.

I just wanted to let you know that I signed a contract for the
engagement today - so thanks very much for going to the trouble! This
personal touch is the type of thing that makes Skillfair a great service."

Well done to Nick - and to everyone else, remember to make sure your answerphone is switched on or you divert to a message service or you will lose out!

Financial Requirements For Tenders - how do you do it?

Martin Kendall raised an interesting point today wondering " if there is any collaborative thinking so far on how best to "tackle" the requirement in most tender requests for a demonstration of "financial strength". Whilst it would be possible to collaborate in resourcing to form appropriate capability for a tender I cannot see how "one man band" consultants could overcome the "financial strength test" "

I thought that there must be a correct way round this and know that many Skillfair users have told me that they use umbrella companes to go in under for the first time, but for some tenders financial strength shouldn't be such a big issue, that there could be other ways of demonstrating your ability to be a sustainabe company and demonstrate your commitment to the future?

Does anyone have any coping strategies that I might be able to pass on to Martin?

what are management consultants really worth?

After a rash of articles in the press that seemed to suggest that £200 a day was a perfectly OK rate for a 'management consultant' we've been working on getting a more balanced view out. So it was great to get a story into the Mail on Sunday about our recent fee survey that emphasised the experience and skills that are required to add value to clients businesses.

There's a link to the article on This is Money where you can add your comments as well.

Are business personalities regional?

Interesting article this Sunday about people in different regions of the UK having different personalities. Huge generalisation of course, but in my wanderings around UK networking events there is definitely a different atmosphere in the different regions. Londond seems a bit more serious and 'buttoned up' than other parts of the UK - but maybe that's just because everyone has had to fight their way through the tube.traffic to get there!

Question is are consultants in the different areas also different - and does having a non-typical personality work for you or against you?

Don't be negative about the competition

Mr Brown's embarassment over the alleged smear campaigns reminded me of the first rule of sales - never, ever 'diss' the competition. Why not? Because the more you talk about the competition the more attention you give them and the more important they become in your client's mind. I have occasionally come across salespeople who spend so much time having a go at the people they see as their competitors that I've learned nothing at all about their own products and find myself wanting to check out the competition at the first opportunity.

Of course, we consultants are much more subtle about things (aren't we?) but if you ever find yourself kicking off with; 'Of course, we're not like the big consultancies who .... ' maybe you should rewind and try again.

What entrepreneurs can learn from the G20 summit

London has calmed down and the protestors and media who were out in force have quieted now that the G20 summit is over. Aside from the global stimulus package announced, the photo opps and the tensions, there are some good tips that entrepreneurs can learn from the global gathering on how to get through the recession. Essentially, the message from the world leaders was 'we know what we need to do and we're going to do it'.

This attitude needs to be adopted by smaller businesses and there is no reason why it can’t be. Everyone knows times are tough and as a small business it's easy to sink into feeling that there's nothing you can do. However, the businesses that stay positive and take the right actions to deal with the recession are the ones that will survive and, better still, be ready to thrive once economic conditions improve.

There are simple ways to take action. For example, if you have to cut costs make sure you cut intelligently. Don't make your business look shabby or ineffective. Do something positive and get the message out to your customers that you’re doing well and can still be relied upon! Something as simple as sprucing up your website by getting rid of old articles and news and replacing them with your latest and greatest business achievements shows that you’re still thriving and succeeding – a lick of paint can work wonders!

If you really can't see anything wrong with how your business looks or worse, can't think of anything positive to say – you may need an objective advisor to help you look at things with a fresh eye. Online services like Skillfair can help you link up with consultants in your area with the right experience for your business needs. Self employed consultants are a valuable resource and can provide services such as business advice, executive coaching and marketing on a part time basis. A small investment can produce big results when it comes to the morale of your staff and the direction of your business.

Buck the trend of doom and gloom and take action to get through these hard times. Like the G20 leaders, work out what you need to do, tell everyone about it and then get on and do it - lets hope the G20’s do that last bit as well!

little things destroy trust

When you work alone or in a small company it can be quite easy to lose confidence and end up projecting a rather dismal image to your clients so given that it's spring cleaning time we should all do a quick check of how our business appears to the outside world. Try these checks as a starting point;

• Ring the phone numbers on your card - are they still valid, who answers the phone, does your voicemail message sound professional and confident?



• Email yourself from a test email address - we get a surprising number of bounces because people have changed providers and forgotten to redirect their email


• Do a search for yourself or your company on Google, does your website appear, have you contributed to any blogs, is your Skillfair profile (and any other profiles) up to date?


• Take a look at the last dozen emails you've sent - do they all have your contact details included, are they confident and positive, clear and to the point?

If all's well then you can take a break with a clear conscience - if not then a little spring-cleaning on your business image will make you feel better and, more importantly, will ensure that potential clients get a positive impression however they make contact with you.

What makes a client trust you?

Reading this article about Social Networking by Alan Rae I was struck by how important it is to build trust with clients and business contacts, whether you're working on or offline. It's so easy to destroy someone's trust in you - one mistake can do it - but building trust is a much slower process.

I think you can sum it up more or less like this;

• Do what you say you're going to do
• Do it when you say you will
• Do the work as well as you can
• Let the client know what's happening

and most of important of all, if things aren't going well or you're not going to achieve what you planned - tell the client before they get nervous enough to ask!

What do you think?